Online backup services (mozy, carbonite, ironmountain, etc)

[Alex Franke]

We're thinking about subscribing to an online backup service. Mozy.com sounds like a good deal at $5 a month for one computer. My company has a deal with Iron Mountain for about $10 a month. Carbonite looks like the least expensive at $4.17 a month.

At first I was a little nervous about storing all my data on some server somewhere, but I'm getting over that. Besides, I'm not sure I have any files that would be of any real value to anyone other than me and my family.

I like the idea of automatic off-site backup. We currently take backup media off-site every once in a while, but even a month's worth of photos of my two awesome kids would be hard to lose...

So anyone have any experience with these services? Any recommendations? Anything to look out for?

[Hellrazor]

1. Security issues with storing offsite. Do you want pics of grandma in a 2 piece bikini hitting the net?

2. Stability of the company to stay afloat.

3. Bandwith requirements.

[crokett]

1. Security issues with storing offsite. Do you want pics of grandma in a 2 piece bikini hitting the net?

That is the big one for me. Not the Grandma part, the security part. I figure that anything I don't care about losing is the only thing I'd put out there and it doesn't need to be backed up anyway. I do the offsite backup thing every couple weeks. Anything absolutely critical is always stored on at least 2 PCs.

[Alex Franke]

1. Security issues with storing offsite. Do you want pics of grandma in a 2 piece bikini hitting the net?

2. Stability of the company to stay afloat.

3. Bandwith requirements.

All good points. With just a few exceptions, I don't think my files are very valuable to anyone other than me, actually. And someone would have to decrypt and peruse 59,519 photos (current count) to get the one of grandma (not to mention deciding to peruse my photos out of petabytes of other customer data...

Anyway, here are more details that addressed these concerns for me.

Mozy uses 448-bit blowfish block cipher before the files hit the wire. It's an EMC company (30B mkt cap), but looks like it limits its upload speed to 133k/second for the "home" edition. So the first backup can take days (weeks?), but after that it's block-level incremental, which is usually super-fast.

IronMountain uses Rijndael block cipher (AES) before it hits the wire. It's public at about 5.5B mkt cap. I don't know about its upload restrictions, but it also uses block level incremental backups after the first "big one".

Carbonite is private, so I didn't investigate it in as much detail.

[JoeyGee]

Storage is so stinking cheap nowadays, I would use 2 external hdd's and rotate them off site somewhere. I just don't trust online storage for all the reasons noted above.

[MilDoc]

Storage is so stinking cheap nowadays, I would use 2 external hdd's and rotate them off site somewhere. I just don't trust online storage for all the reasons noted above.

I agree. Why trust that an online service will always be around?

Get a nice USB HD backup. CHEAPER in the long run.

I store my USB HD in a fireproof safe. Just in case.

[gerti]

Storage is so stinking cheap nowadays, I would use 2 external hdd's and rotate them off site somewhere. I just don't trust online storage for all the reasons noted above.

That's what I do. All data is stored on a RAID1, source code repository on a second system, and all gets backed up on to an external drive that gets swapped weekly and stored off-site.

[Alex Franke]

I appreciate the input, and I didn't mean to get into a debate over whether or not online backup services are safe or viable, or whether companies like EMC or Iron Mountain will be around for another five years. What I really want is a no-hassle, don't-even-have-to-think-about-it solution, and that's why we're thinking about the online services.

I currently use the "local backup & store offsite" strategy that many are already suggesting. It works reasonably well, but it has its drawbacks. (It can be a hassle, it's not really automated or encrypted, and if the house burns down I lose a week or so of stuff if I've been diligent with the off-site storage.)

So I've come to see online backup services as viable, secure, cost effective, and time-saving alternatives to what I'm doing now. Viable because the companies are sizable and reputable. Secure because of blowfish and rijndael (US Govt standard). Cost effective because hardware cost over service lifetime is roughly the same as online backup service cost. And time-saving because I won't have to think about it -- it'll always be current and off site.

So the real question is, are any of these services better or worse than others? Does anyone have a favorite or any horror stories? Any big ones that I've missed? (I can't believe that Google doesn't appear to be in this game...)

MilDoc, you might want to double check that your safe is rated to protect magnetic media, too. I believe hard drives lose their data at a much lower "baking temperature" than paper.

[jonmulzer]

Read the customer service agreements once and you will think twice about using any of these services. They basically say to not use them for anything critical or valuable, that they may or may not have your data when you need it and if they do have it they will allow you access to your backups at their leisure. You also release them from any liability in the event they do not have the data when you need it, that you have been paying them to store. With legalese like that they could almost have you install an application that eats up some cpu cycles and then tell you it has done a backup when it has done nothing and then if you ever need your data they tell you that you are SOL. Not that I think they are, but they could.

How handy are you with software? There are several open source apps that allow you to do most everything theirs can and you could possibly set up a co-op of sorts with a friend of family member where they backup to you and you backup to them and assuming both of your houses don't flood or burn down at the same time you would both be covered for the cost of bandwidth and a constantly running computer on both ends.

[MilDoc]

MilDoc, you might want to double check that your safe is rated to protect magnetic media, too. I believe hard drives lose their data at a much lower "baking temperature" than paper.

It is so rated.

[Alex Franke]

Read the customer service agreements once and you will think twice about using any of these services. They basically say to not use them for anything critical or valuable, that they may or may not have your data when you need it and if they do have it they will allow you access to your backups at their leisure. You also release them from any liability in the event they do not have the data when you need it, that you have been paying them to store. With legalese like that they could almost have you install an application that eats up some cpu cycles and then tell you it has done a backup when it has done nothing and then if you ever need your data they tell you that you are SOL. Not that I think they are, but they could.

Yeah, I've read them (Mozy's agreement, and Iron Mountain's Agreement). I wasn't overly alarmed by them -- it all sounds like basic legal gobbledygook and very similar to other online services -- "We're not responsible for anything, even if we are responsible for it." These companies, though, would have no reason to not try their darnedest to make their customers happy by providing the advertised service.

Having been on the other side of this (working with attorneys on EULAs and SLA's for an online service my former company had), I know that a lot of that really scary stuff that the attorneys make you put in there are to CYA in worst case scenarios. I wanted to keep most of it out -- I felt it would scare people away unnecessarily.

How handy are you with software? There are several open source apps that allow you to do most everything theirs can and you could possibly set up a co-op of sorts with a friend of family member where they backup to you and you backup to them and assuming both of your houses don't flood or burn down at the same time you would both be covered for the cost of bandwidth and a constantly running computer on both ends.

This is a good idea, too. When I considered this I specifically looked into Areca, Cobain, and Amanda backup solutions and considered both "a friends house" and 300GB+ web hosts. The web hosts were nearly the cost of Mozy and not as secure. The "friends house" is still an option, but it requires both computers to be on with an FTP port open. Currently I backup to the kitchen computer also -- it's not always on and I'm annoyed when I have to run down there to power it up just for a backup.

The other thing that's appealing about the "friend's house" solution is that you can do the initial backup by burning a bunch of DVD's or sending over a hard drive and going incremental after that. This is a *lot* quicker than sending my music and photo collection over the wire.

I wrote my own software for the in house backups quite a while ago, but even though I'm an experienced developer, I'd prefer something written by those "in the biz" who are closer to this particular application. Areca looked great in this respect, but frankly so did Mozy and Iron Mountain...

:lol: And if *both* houses burned down, I think I would just take whatever was left in my pocket and buy some lottery tickets!

It is so rated.

Cool -- Can you recommend the brand? We've been talking about getting a fire safe but haven't done it yet... I read that the average house fire is about 1,000 degrees for a half hour or so, so even the one hour safes are worth considering.

[Carbonite]

Carbonite Online Backup

Hi there. Alison from Carbonite here. I came across this thread and thought I'd jump in to answer any questions you might have.

First off, to fill in the information on Carbonite encryption: Carbonite uses a combination of Blowfish and DES III (Triple DES) encryption. Everything is encrypted before it leaves your computer. These encryption algorithms in combination with the use of SSL for data transmission make Carbonite’s data protection/encryption process similar to online retails and online financial institutions.

Overall, online backup is a great solution for protecting your files. It is easy, secure, automatic and hassle-free. There have been some security threats recently with some of the newer, smaller backup companies, but if you stick with one of the three you mentioned (Carbonite, Mozy or Ironmountian) you shouldn't worry about security being an issue.

One great thing that sets online backup apart from onsite backups, is that once you have completed an initial backup, programs such as Carbonite perform block-level incremental backup. This means that it only backs up what's new or changed. The program doesn't waste time re-backing up a file when only a few words or numbers have changed. This also means you won't have to dig through multiple copies of a document to find the latest one. However, Carbonite also versions files. Therefore, if you save over a document and you need a previous version back, you can recover a version going back 90 days. Online backup makes things like that a whole lot easier than trying to sort through discs and EHDs.

Please let me know if you have any other questions about online backup that you'd like me to answer.

Thanks,
Alison

[Alex Franke]

Please let me know if you have any other questions about online backup that you'd like me to answer.

Wow, Alison - I certainly didn't expect this post! You must be keeping close tabs on your web referrals! (Either that or someone out there at Carbonite is among us! <gasp!>)

I guess this biggest questions for me are

• How do I know the data (or the company for that matter) will be around when I need to get it back? It seems like the "Limitation of Liability" sections of the service agreements I've read (Mozy and IronMountain) pretty much say, "No matter what happens, you're on your own."
• Are there any upload bandwidth restrictions for Carbonite specifically? (e.g. how long will it take me to upload 250GB? Can I do the first upload from work at 1.5Mbps? )
• And -- perhaps most importantly -- wasn't carbonite the stuff Han Solo was frozen in in The Empire Strikes Back?

Judging from the reaction I get from most people, though, I think online backup services still have an up-hill battle. Thanks for chiming in, though. I appreciate it.

You should know, BTW, that you were recommended this year by an unaffiliated presenter at Microsoft's TechEd in Orlando.

[Carbonite]

Wow, Alison - I certainly didn't expect this post! You must be keeping close tabs on your web referrals! (Either that or someone out there at Carbonite is among us! <gasp!>)

I guess this biggest questions for me are

• How do I know the data (or the company for that matter) will be around when I need to get it back? It seems like the "Limitation of Liability" sections of the service agreements I've read (Mozy and IronMountain) pretty much say, "No matter what happens, you're on your own."
• Are there any upload bandwidth restrictions for Carbonite specifically? (e.g. how long will it take me to upload 250GB? Can I do the first upload from work at 1.5Mbps? )
• And -- perhaps most importantly -- wasn't carbonite the stuff Han Solo was frozen in in The Empire Strikes Back?

Judging from the reaction I get from most people, though, I think online backup services still have an up-hill battle. Thanks for chiming in, though. I appreciate it.

You should know, BTW, that you were recommended this year by an unaffiliated presenter at Microsoft's TechEd in Orlando.

We like to keep an eye on conversations that people are having about us, so that we can lend a hand to those who might need help. I don't mean to intrude, I just thought I might be able to answer some questions for you. Consider it proactive customer support.

As for your questions:

• That's a valid question/concern. While even companies the size of Enron can suddenly go belly-up, Carbonite is not likely to do so anytime soon. We’ve raised $27 million in venture capital and still have a good portion of that in the bank. Financially, we’re very healthy. That being said, a good way to think about online backup is to compare it to insurance. Online Backup is there to help you in case you lose your files, but we're just the backup plan. The original files will all still be on your computer. If your online backup company were to ever go belly up, you would find out about it before your files were ever deleted and could select a different company to start backing up your data. Yes, the initial backup with a new company would be annoying, but since it’s backup and not storage, your backup company would not be erasing the only copy of your files. Take car insurance as an example. With a car, if your insurance company were ever to go out of business, you wouldn’t lose your car, you would just switch companies. Again, if you are thinking of any of the larger online backup companies, you shouldn’t have to worry, but I hope that analogy makes sense.
  
• Carbonite does not limit your bandwidth, however your initial backup could still take quite some time. Typically, high-speed internet connections can only back up about 2-3 GB per day. After that, incremental backups will take only a few minutes per day. If you do perform your initial backup at work (and your IT department does not limit your usage), you should be able to take advantage of your full bandwidth and therefore would probably see a much faster backup. However, there are so many factors that go into each connection and network on the user-end, we can’t guarantee that.
  
• Exactly! Our co-founders are big Star Wars fans. But there are many reasons that they chose the name. Our CEO tells the full story in this blog post: Where did the name Carbonite come from?.

I hope those answers help! And thanks for passing along the good news. We are always happy to hear people recommending us to others.